Agents of the Israeli Border Police have killed three Palestinians this morning during a new raid in Jaba, in the Jenin district, in the north of the West Bank, amid a strong escalation of tension, and less than 48 hours after the The Israeli army carried out an operation in the refugee camp in the city of Jenin that left another seven Palestinians dead.
Members of the Border Police have entered the West Bank town of Yaba this morning to arrest suspects "of several shooting attacks against Israeli Army forces" in the region, according to an Israeli police spokesman. During the operation, the policemen "received shots from the wanted persons' car", after which "they returned fire and killed the three armed men who were in the vehicle", added the same source.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health has identified the three men as Ahmad Fashafsheh, 22, Sufian Fakhouri, 26, and Nayef Malaysheh, 25.
According to the Israeli Police, Fashafsheh and Fakhouri were members of the Islamic Jihad militia, a group considered terrorist by Israel. The third deceased, Malaysheh, has also been identified as a "militia agent".
Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces and recurring military incursions and raids on Palestinian towns have been almost daily for a year in the occupied West Bank.
This beginning of 2023 is the deadliest of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since the year 2000, and there are already at least 75 Palestinians killed in violent incidents of various kinds with Israel so far this year. On the Israeli side, 14 people have also been killed in various attacks carried out by Palestinians in occupied territory.
This morning, a minor seriously injured in the raid two days ago by Israeli forces in Jenin also died.
That of Tuesday, March 7, was the third deadliest Israeli incursion so far this year in Palestinian territory, after a military operation at the end of January that resulted in 10 Palestinians being killed in the same camp in Jenin, and another just two weeks in Nablus that resulted in 11 deaths.
All of this occurs in the context of a progressive emergence of local Palestinian armed groups made up to a large extent of young people who act against Israeli forces on their own, without being subject to the control of traditional political factions.
The tension in the region has also escalated in a context of the return to power of Benjamin Netanyahu, who this time heads an Israeli government coalition where far-right forces have a lot of weight, calling for a stronger hand to be applied against Palestinians and a deepening of Israeli colonization in occupied territory. .
